The SW AHSN Sharing Best Practice Conference, designed for health and care professionals, attracted around 200 people from all over the UK. The event was designed to give idea-focused presentations on a wide range of subjects to foster learning, inspiration and provoke conversations, along with more in-depth sessions.

ASPIC aims to aid the understanding of differences in context and generate in-depth insights into the implementation processes of two projects supported by the SW AHSN and PenCLAHRC. Each featured project seeks to increase the uptake of changes in healthcare practice in acute settings.

The conference session looked at the barriers and enablers to change within healthcare and how context really matters. They presented the latest findings of the ASPIC study and looked closely at the challenges of implementing projects that seek to improve the quality of healthcare in the South West.

Dr Day said of their session:

"It provided an excellent opportunity to share with a range of health and care professionals the insights as to how context influences the wider adoption of changes in practice. This led to a useful discussion around collaborating and learning from each other about quality improvement and what is needed to enhance improvement in the South West."

In a second session, PenCLAHRC Senior Research Fellow Dr Helen Lloyd presented a session that described different methods for measuring change across new models of care and gave attendees insights into her experiences of using these methods in current evaluations across the South West.

Dr Lloyd and the research team presented their model of Person-Centred Coordinated Care (P3C) and the methods they are using to measure and support the implementation of similar models across the region.

The team also outlined the work they were commissioned to undertake on behalf of NHS England. This involved a review of how patient-reported measures have been used to drive change for person-centred care for long term conditions and end of life care, the building of a compendium of measures for commissioners to support these efforts, and the patient and organisational measures developed by the team for this purpose.

Dr Lloyd said:

“We really enjoyed the event and it was great to have an opportunity to share our work and meet others working with the SW AHSN. The plenary talks highlighted some of the good work being done and how we should celebrate when things work well. Dr Phil Hammond, keynote speaker at the event, reminded us of the value of happiness and laughter, and the importance of these for wellbeing and connectivity for all of us working across health and social care.”